


Of Kisses, Murder, and Other Strange Dances

by MamaMystique



Category: Dracula (TV 2013), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:35:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6740641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaMystique/pseuds/MamaMystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should have been raining on the nights that Jayne Wetherby came to call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Kisses, Murder, and Other Strange Dances

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I feel I need to start by explaining myself: this should be alternatively titled ‘Jenni writes a fic that no one asked for, about a pairing no one ships, in an AU that doesn’t make sense, for a prompt that doesn’t exist outside of wanting these two women to meet and receive far happier endings than they were given.

It should have been raining on the nights that Jayne Wetherby came to call.

Not that Bedelia liked the rain – frankly the pressure fronts only accentuated the headaches she self-medicated for – but she couldn’t deny that the addition of a storm overhead, to compliment the storm arriving on her doorstep, would create such a terribly picturesque image.

For one, the woman was never clean. Not when she came here. There was no doubt in Bedelia’s mind that  _Lady_  Jayne could be as effortlessly beautiful as a creature so exquisite as herself was want to be. She could find traces of it, blonde curls not yet flattened from exertion beneath her mane of hair, smudged charcoal makeup slipping from her lashes, and portions of her fine leather and silk wardrobe that  _might_  be salvageable if Bedelia could convince her out of them quick enough. Blood was a terribly difficult stain to remove.

But it was the utter exhaustion in her eyes that made Bedelia cave, instantly, and always. It was ridiculous when she thought about it too much, treating Jayne like a child who needed to be tended to, to be told that they were loved and that  _yes_ , this was all quite worth it. Ridiculous that Jayne was only a few years younger than her, ridiculous that Jayne’s towering stature forced Bedelia to lean up on the toes of her heels to reach her lips, ridiculous in the fact that they were both murderesses when facts boiled down to facts. Oh, but what a pair they made.

With dawn only a hair’s breath away Bedelia would pull Jayne inside her doorway and into her arms. Instinctively the woman would bury her face in Bedelia’s hair, nuzzling her neck, melting against her even as they tried to make the familiar walk to the bath.

Bedelia’s fingers would be dancing over her all the while, soft like a serpent as they pulled at laces, shed buttons, and freed Jayne from the tight confines of her clothes. When the Lady was not nearly so drained she would laugh, saying that Bedelia’s hands were far too gentle and wicked for her own good. They would smile then, because they both knew of what else Bedelia’s hands had done, how her bare touch had killed as ruthlessly as one of Jayne’s knives.

Once the huntress had been lowered into the warm, lavender-scented depths of the impossibly deep claw-footed tub, Bedelia would disappear to collect the clothes shed down her hall like the skin of a deadly patterned snake. Within moments she could suss out the blood, and set the fabric in a concocted bath of it’s own.

Bedelia would return to find Jayne sitting in the water, her shock still evident in the way she neither cleaned herself nor reacted to the sting of her wounds. Somehow, though, she would come back long enough to watch as her caretaker undressed and slipped herself inside the tub, her chest to Jayne’s back, and begin to wash her hair. The process was always so soothing, so ritualistic, the culmination of which came when Jayne would resurface from beneath the water, gasping, and turn herself until she was laid against Bedelia’s breasts. It was one of the moments both of them would confess they lived for, Jayne finding peace, a willing supplicant grasping at the body of the woman who held her.

Skin flushed pink, hair cleaned, they would rise out of the bath together like two sirens of the sea. Jayne would not protest as Bedelia wrapped her in a soft sage towel, and lead her by her fingertips to the great expanse of her bed. This was where stitches were sewn and kisses were pressed to wounds, where some nights Jayne would kiss in return, asking for something more. Tonight was not one of those nights, and the huntress was tucked naked beneath the crisp sheets, protesting the chill in gentle murmurs until Bedelia curled her leg around Jayne’s hips and drew her into her embrace.

Sleep would come for both of them, sweet and total. Bedelia knew when she woke Jayne would be gone, her torn clothes reclaimed, the bath cleaned of any mess. It did not trouble her that this was the nature of their time together, that they were two souls drawn to one another but both too alike and too stubborn to ever entertain something beyond their strange dance. She knew this, accepted it, and did not expect anything further. Bedelia had her fill of strange relationships to last a lifetime.

It was in awe, then, that she stirred the next day, and found Lady Jayne fully dressed, sitting at the edge of her bed. The question in her eyes was enough, and the huntress stared her down while her fingers traced the pattern of the bedding.

“I tried to leave,” she finally began, her patience for silence nothing in comparison to Bedelia’s. “But I couldn’t. I don’t…want to.”

All at once a thousand thoughts flitted across Bedelia’s mind. She could ask her what she meant, she could refuse her, she could tell her that she felt the same. None of them felt reliable. Words, more often than not in Bedelia’s experience, could be faked. It was what someone  _did_ , not what they spoke, that mattered to her.

So she honored her own philosophy. Silent, Bedelia reached for the edge of the sheets next to her, and pulled them down in invitation.

It was an invitation accepted with relief, and Bedelia swore that with each article of clothing Jayne eagerly pulled off the woman began to glow. How nice it could be to dangle at the precipice and have someone come forward to hold your hand. Jayne burrowed back beneath the covers, back against Bedelia, this time drawing the smaller woman within her own arms. She was toned, and lovely, and the first person Bedelia could ever remember letting hold her without any desire to fight or flee. The rush of comfort felt strange, made her give voice to a humor she always tried to bury. “Interesting that you considered my invitation to be of the ‘clothing optional’ sort.”

“Darling,” Jayne hummed as she pressed a kiss to Bedelia’s lips, “surely you know by now that I view all parties as the ‘clothing optional’ variety. Yours is the only one I fully commit to.”

For that, Bedelia decided, she was going to have to kiss her. And she would have, was she not more content to close her eyes and escape the morning a little longer, to just exist in the moment and not have to question how it happened. Jayne noticed the weight of her eyelashes, and drew Bedelia close until her face was buried comfortably against the crook of her neck. “Sleep,” she whispered as she stroked Bedelia’s platinum hair, “I promise I will still be here when you wake up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I recently discovered that in 2012/2013, NBC was apparently like:  
> ‘Hey everyone. We’re doing shows based on horror literature. But we want to add in some brand new original female characters to freshen it up. Any ideas?’  
> And someone answered: ‘I’d like to volunteer the idea of a blonde woman with an impeccable sense of fashion who constantly has flawless hair, is ridiculously clever, and who is a murderess that has a strange but def sexy relationship with the titular protagonist. Also she got them cheekbones that could 100% kill someone.’  
> And NBC was like: ‘AMAZE. GOOD. WRITE ONE FOR EACH SHOW MEETING ADJOURNED CHOP CHOP GO MAKE MURDER QUEENS.’
> 
> Long story short, they did it, my brain melted, and I high-key ship Bedelia Du Maurier x Lady Jayne because I think they would get along splendidly.


End file.
